<p>Life for the consumer has changed rapidly as the marketplace shifts to the e-commerce cloud. Expectedly, it has opened up an array of mind-boggling business opportunities. Those little kiosks that did brisk business selling railway and air tickets in small towns have vanished and are today butcher’s or barber’s shops. Yatra.com and MakeMyTrip have taken over. Box office queues for cinema tickets have dissolved into a BookMyShow app on a cell phone. E-commerce, once covered occasionally by business newspapers and magazines as a distant curiosity, is an action-packed ‘beat’ today.<br><br>While institutional money has been slow to discover the new opportunities, individual investors with big cash piles moved in quickly. Instead of hanging up his boots, Ratan Tata has done an ‘angel’ innings with his personal wealth seeding as many 11 e-commerce ventures from Paytm to Ola. Ronnie Screwvala, after he exited UTV, has parked over Rs 200 crore in a host of eTailers including grocery supplier EkStop, and lingerie portal Zivame.<br><br>Then came the stampede. Successful startup exponents like Vijay Shekhar Sharma, who had incubated and grown e-commerce ventures, or those who carried a wealth of experience and money from a digital past like Mohandas Pai and Nandan Nilekani, spotted and funded new ideas and ventures. This was only the start of a new rush of raiders whose appetite for investing in e-commerce ventures has reached hysterical levels. Today, it is not only MDs and CEOs but even mid-level professionals parking a couple of lakhs or even a few crores with promising but fund-desperate startups.<br><br>The important element is the emergence of a whole new business ecosystem. The normal rigmarole of corporate due diligence has been replaced by quick, gut-feel decisions. A Mohandas Pai and Vijay Shekar Sharma, after a few attentive meetings, make up their minds and put their funds where their mouth is. On the other hand, droves of bright new minds, don’t have to pitch with hard-nosed bankers. There are angel investors willing to take equity and also help mentor the venture.<br>It has democratised the business environment and opened up channels to whoever is willing to take the risk and have a shot. A few months ago the winner of BW Businessworld’s Young Entrepreneurs Awards was a marketing analytics software developer called Wingify promoted by the 28-year-old Paras Chopra. He raised Rs 50 lakh three years ago from friends and family. By the end of FY2014-15, he was clocking annual revenues of Rs 44 crore. At one end, it is the big players Tiger Global or Jack Ma’s Alibaba that is pouring in millions of dollars into the big etailers —Snapdeal and Flipkart. At the other, there is the Rs 20-lakh-to-5-crore ticket size funding the beginners. It is a breath of fresh air that is pushing growth, innovation and the creation of wealth.<br><br>There is also the downside. Copycats and confidence tricksters abound; and for every successful new e-commerce venture, there are 20 that fall to the wayside. In months to come the speed of consolidation will accelerate and a big shake-out is due. But something tells us this phase of investment is qualitatively better and more selective than the madness of the dot com boom over a decade ago. An interesting package has been put together by assistant editor Paramita Chatterji and senior editor Vishal Krishna. It will also give you a glimpse of some of the genres and models of e-commerce that have succeeded, and those that failed. There are also a string of eye-opening interviews with some of the big czars of the new wave —Kavin Bharti Mittal, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Rohit Bansal— that you should not miss.<br><br><em>Gurbir Singh</em><br><br>(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 02-11-2015)</p>
